Food

Food is different today to what it was like one hundred years ago.

If it was a school day and you had a school lunch, you would usually get healthy things like sandwiches and fruit.

You could buy your own white bread or you could make your own. You could also get your milk free at school. In the winter the milk that was given to the children was sometimes made into milo. They didn’t have yoghurt.

Most food was grown in gardens or people made their own food –they baked it. Common food was basic like soup, bread, sandwiches, water, meat, vegies and fruit.

Home-made cakes, biscuits, jam and fruit preserves (bottled fruit) filled the cupboards of many households for many years. Some people kept the fruit too long and it rotted.

Sharing a drink of tea over a meal has been an important ritual. Alcohol could not be served with food until 1961. Alcohol was allowed to be served with food in the homes it was just in hotels etc that it wasn't.

Unlike many other island nations seafood was not a major part of a New Zealanders diet in the twentieth century.

If you had just seen the butcher, families would often cook a roast. For breakfast they would

either have bacon and eggs or weet-bix.

For a roast dinner at Christmas time, they would have turkey, ham, potatoes, peas and beans. Ice cream came in cardboard tubs. People only got treats very occasionally.

I think we can be grateful and thankful for the food we have now because in the olden days food was a lot more simple and basic.